1. Field of the Invention
An aspect of the present invention relates to at least one of a distance measuring device and a distance measuring method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a distance measuring device such as a stereoscopic camera has been known for measuring a distance to an object by inputting plural two-dimensional images at different points of view. For example, a distance measuring device has been known which includes an image sensor camera, an image capturing board, a memory for storing image data, an image processing part for calculating information of a distance to an object from the image data stored in the memory, and a display monitor for displaying information of a distance calculated in the image processing part.
In the above-mentioned distance measuring device, the image processing part is composed of a reconstruction part, a brightness information calculating part, a distance information calculating part, and a mask part. The mask part converts a value of a picture element corresponding to a non-lens part of a micro-lens array inside the image sensor camera to a predetermined value.
However, properties of lenses constituting a micro-lens array in the above-mentioned distance measuring device are uniform, and hence, “blown out highlights” (overexposure) or “blocked up shadows” (underexposure) may be caused in a scene with a large brightness difference, wherein information for calculating a distance to an object may lack in such an area, and hence, there may be a problem that it may not be possible to measure a distance at a good precision.